Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to social networking. In particular, the present invention is related to providing a link to a portion of a media object in real time in a social networking update.
Background
Social networking systems, including social networks and “socialized” portal web sites, such as those hosted by Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Google Inc., enable users to broadcast social networking updates (e.g., messages regarding the users, the users' observations, etc.) to other users who subscribe to their updates. Facebook®, MySpace®, Twitter®, and LinkedIn® are some examples of social networks. Example socialized portal web sites include movies.yahoo.com, video.yahoo.com, music.msn.com, www.bing.com/videos, www.youtube.com, etc. Users who provide social networking updates may be referred to as posters. Users who subscribe to updates of a poster may be referred to as followers of that poster. Posters may provide social networking updates to their followers via email, short message service (SMS), instant message (IM), or any other suitable messaging technology.
Posters often provide social networking updates that refer to media objects (e.g., video, audio, etc.) that the posters are consuming (e.g., watching, listening to, etc.). The media objects may be live or recorded. If a media object is recorded, a poster may explicitly provide a link to the media object in a social networking update. Alternatively, the poster may provide a sufficient description in the social networking update to enable followers to find the media object that is referenced in the social networking update. Although the poster may include text in the social networking update that describes a portion of the media object to which the poster wishes to direct the followers' attention, the followers may have difficulty finding the described portion. For instance, the followers may not be able to find the portion of the media object that is described by the text.
If a media object is live, a poster may explicitly provide a link to the media object in a social networking update, but followers may not receive or read the social networking update promptly enough to consume a portion of the live media object to which the poster wishes to direct the followers' attention. Accordingly, the followers may thereafter attempt to access a recorded version of the media object. However, a recorded version of the media object may not be accessible until completion of the live performance. In fact, the link to the live media object in the social networking update may not be accessible until completion of the live performance.
Thus, systems, methods, and computer program products are needed that are capable of providing a link to a portion of a media object in real time in a social networking update.